Great Expectations

William Christian Bullitt, debonair, billiard-bald, onetime U.S. Ambassador to France, joined the French Army in Algiers, after completing an assignment by LIFE to write articles on France and Italy. Bullitt said he would keep his U.S. citizenship, got from the French the rank of commandant (U.S.: major).

Artur Rodzinski, genial, brush-headed conductor of the New York Philharmonic promised R.A.F. Wing Commander John Wooldridge last April one performance of Wooldridge's symphonic poem "Constellations" for every five German planes he shot down. Last week 33-year-old Wooldridge bagged his fifth, and the R.A.F. promised him leave to go to Manhattan. Cabled Conductor Rodzinski: HAVE SCHEDULED THREE PERFORMANCES "CONSTELLATIONS."

Gert Hans von Gontard, Anheuser-Busch brewery heir, onetime German baron, freed last June of draft-evasion charges, was inducted into the Army six days before his 38th birthday, dropped the "von" from his name, observed cheerfully: "I've been an American citizen for five years--and am proud of it."

Mixed Verdicts

Frank Sinatra's effect on Italians (as reported by Stars and Stripes): in Rome, a group of swoon-aged maidens listened imperviously to a Sinatra record, requested Home on the Range.

Technical Sergeant Charles E. ("Commando") Kelly, now an infantry instructor at Fort Benning, overstayed a furlough in Pittsburgh by six days, was hailed before a court-martial. The officer-judges sentenced the holder of the Congressional Medal of Honor to: $90 fine, 90 days confinement to camp. Asked Kelly: "Can I go to the movies?" Said the court-martial : Yes, if the movies are in the camp.

Harold LeClare Ickes turned his curmudgeonly thumbs down on Gerald L. K. Smith's request for a Yellowstone Park buffalo as an "American First" mascot saying he doubted that any decent buffalo could "bear such a stigma." The Secretary of the Interior also suggested last fortnight that Hamilton Fish should be "fried not only on one side, but on both." This week Representative Fish sizzled into rhyme:

American Labor Party, here we are, Browder, Hillman, and F.D.R.; We've come to give you the government's keys, And I'm their spokesman, Harold Ickes.

Richard Whitney, ex-New York Stock Exchange president, now an industrial sales broker in Boston, on parole from Sing Sing, asked permission of the Massachusetts parole board to set up a frozen-fruit business in Florida.

Fine Shapes

Harry James, trying to stretch an easy double in a Hollywood baseball game, slid into third base, fractured his right foot, had to lead his band sitting. His wife, Betty Grable, still confident of both her pinions, posed for her first cheesecake since the birth of their daughter last March (see cut).

June Havoc, Broadway musicomedienne (Mexican Hay ride), had her broken leg taken out of a plaster cast, went off to Hollywood to star in the cast of Brewster's Millions. Present at the taking-out party: her sister Gypsy Rose Lee, reported by New York Post Columnist Earl Wilson to be expecting a child in February and planning to divorce her husband, Actor Alexander Kirkland.

Henry Agard Wallace, visiting Georgia's Governor Ellis G. Arnall and his son (see cut), took his Vice Presidential toothache to an Atlanta dentist's chair, declined gas, interrupted the dentistry six times to dispense autographs. Said the dentist, who repaired a Wallace wisdom tooth, "It is in alignment, and therefore useful . . . one of the few I've ever seen where the wisdom tooth served its purpose of chewing."

High Pressure

Barbara Hutton Grant, five-&-dime heiress, now suing Husband No. 2, ex-Count Court Haugwitz-Reventlow, to gain permanent custody of their 9-year-old son, admitted she had separated from Husband No. 3, Cinemactor Gary Grant, with "no chance for reconciliation." ("He isn't happy and I think it's best we part now. Besides, it's unfair and dishonest to take advantage of his name . . . because I am fighting to hold my child.")

Doris Duke Cromwell, tobacco heiress, whose recent Reno divorce from James H. R. Cromwell was more recently invalidated in New Jersey, continued her legal struggle to divorce her husband. Her attorney's latest claims: 1) Cromwell had written his memoirs, threatened a series of intimate lectures, 2) Cromwell thought $1,000,000 might be an adequate settlement of the pending litigation.

Roger ("Terrible") Touhy, 46, old-time sharpshooting, jail-breaking U.S. public enemy No. 1, now behind bars in Stateville (Ill.) on a 99-year-term for kidnapping, sued 20th Century-Fox for producing and distributing the film Roger Touhy, Gangster, Balaban & Katz for exhibiting it. Charges: libel, slander and violation of privacy. His bill for bad billing: $500,000.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.